On May 22, Foothill gave the opening night performance of its production of Oliver Twist. With brilliant direction and showstopper performances, the directorial debut of Professor Francine Torres, Foothill’s production of Oliver Twist was a hit with the audience, many of whom planned to return and catch another show before the closing night performance on June 7th.

Torres, who comes to Foothill from NYU, makes a point of featuring student actors alongside community actors. Valuing the learned skills and experience students will gain from the production above everything else, Torres had the cast work with professors to learn dialects and stage combat, in addition to the acting lessons she herself gave them.

Choosing Neil Bartlett’s adaptation because it sympathetically reflects Charles Dickens’ passion for advocating for the poor and the silenced while adding a modern sensibility in evaluating Dickens’ moral message, Torres neither shies away from the story’s less palatable moments nor from its low humor. In the opening scene, the company declares, “we are glad to have [the story’s] moral doubted, for in that / we find assurance that it needed to be told…” Focusing on the eternal social justice message of the story while attempting to remove prejudices of Dickens’ day, Torres’ production questions why so much cruelty exists in society. While many productions of Oliver Twist choose between Bill Sykes and Fagin as the villain, Torres holds systemic inequality to account as the true villain of the story.

Following the story of a young orphan left to the tender mercies of the parish workhouse, Dickens uses the character of Oliver himself as a symbolic representation of the oppressed lower classes. Repeatedly exhorted to “be grateful,” Oliver at first suffers in silence, before rebelling against his oppressive ‘guardians’ and running away. When he is rescued by a kind upper class family (Mr. Brownlow and his daughter Rose) Oliver experiences what it is like to not be constantly hungry and afraid, while Dickens’ upper-class readers are shown that the poor are not inherently vicious or in any way different from themselves. Torres’ staging and use of creative lighting and blocking makes the scenes and transitions flow effortlessly into one another with the smoothness of choreography. A particular standout is her choice to project Dickens’ chapter titles onto the boards of the set, like title cards in a silent film.

Tiffany Walters makes a triumphant return to the Foothill stage in a dual role as the Narrator and the Artful Dodger, after appearing in the fall quarter as Sulla in Bruce McLeod’s production of Rossum’s Universal Robots (R. U. R.). Moving fluidly between narrating and acting, Walters directly interacts with the audience. Cheekily confiscating a bag of chips from one audience member, Walters (as Dodger) leads Ofer Kranz (making an impressive debut performance as Oliver Twist) sliding down the bannisters and making rows of the audience stand up so ‘the boys’ can continue their journey to London. Observing her own entrance into the strife of the drama with philosophical detachment, Walters’ unique take on the role of Dodger makes him almost a mythic figure who could no more be done away with than any other constant of the London scene. Despite her revelation, at the end of the play, that the Dodger dies in jail, like Big Ben or the tower of London, it seems impossible to think that any of the characters of this corner of Dickens’ universe could carry on without him.

Seeking to avoid perpetuating racial stereotypes, Torres chose to focus on Fagin’s actions rather than the ethnicity Dickens wrote for the character. Removed from antisemitism, Marc Westmalle’s performance treads a delicate balance between the more violent aspects of Fagin’s character and playing into his comic side. From his compulsive need to be liked to his pathological fear of desertion and betrayal, Westmalle makes a struggle with mental health a key aspect of his characterization, so that Fagin’s eventual break with reality seems more the tragic result of a developing process than a sudden melodramatic occurrence. Westmalle is also the composer and musical director for the production.

Emma Bowman performs her double role with such commitment and variety of characterization that it was not until I saw the show for the second time that I realized she played both Mrs. Sowerberry and Rose. Bowman’s transition from heartless, shrill-voiced Mrs. Sowerberry, chasing Oliver with a broom handle, to tender and dignified Rose, sheltering Oliver from a cruel world, has to be seen to be believed.

Mr. Bumble is brought roaringly to life by Korwin Rodgers who adds endless humor and a delicate touch of pathos to his characterization; while Susan Hogben (as Mrs. Bumble) is the Laurel to Rodgers’ Hardy.

Eric Capi, in his first role since graduating high school, makes a standout debut as Bill Sykes. Portraying Sykes with a shivering intensity, Capi makes the murder of Nancy an unforgettable jump scare, while Torres’ artistic choice to shoot a beam of red at Sykes and Nancy, at the moment when the fatal cudgel is raised, and then cut all the lights turns a scene often cut in other productions into the most memorable moment of the play.

Amanda Korkunis brings humanizing compassion to her portrayal of Nancy. In a brilliant piece of directing, Torres combines a practical move with a symbolic message and the whole cast filing out in a line to shield Nancy from the audience’s gaze, as her body is laid out, is one of the most moving moments of the play.

Foothill’s production of Oliver Twist runs from May 22 – June 7. Click here to find out more about the show or here to purchase tickets. Have you been to see the show? Tell us your favorite part in the comments below!